


As a Matter of Duty

by sturms_sun_shattered



Series: Teba/Harth Oneshots [2]
Category: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: Battle, Blood, Fluff, Indecision, M/M, Minor Injuries, New love, gentle angst, just a little bood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:47:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26554585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sturms_sun_shattered/pseuds/sturms_sun_shattered
Summary: For the moment, Teba is content to keep what he and Harth have quiet, but his allegiance to the warriors makes him question the wisdom of that choice.
Relationships: Harth/Teba (Legend of Zelda)
Series: Teba/Harth Oneshots [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1931161
Comments: 10
Kudos: 30





	As a Matter of Duty

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to the most wonderful beta and new skiff passenger  acacias and to unavoidablekoishi for reading the roughest draft of this, and giving me encouragement in all my romance writing endeavours.

It had been less than a moon’s turn since Harth had made his confession, and Teba was still quietly elated each time he thought of that evening. It was still early days, and they hadn’t yet invited anyone to share in their secret. For now, Teba was content with that arrangement. If the rest of the warriors remained unaware, he and Harth would still be allowed to fly patrols together—and steal a few moments out in the wilderness without the village gossip-mongers fuelling rumours of a spring wedding.

For his part, Harth seemed to respect Teba’s desire for privacy, though Teba knew he desperately wanted to tell Saki and Amali of their newfound happiness. Reserved though he was, even Teba struggled not to grab Harth by the cuirass and drag him in for a kiss when they mingled with their friends on the stacks. The cocksure way Harth flipped his hair from his eyes when Saki suggested he seemed happier than usual made Teba’s chest burn with pride that it was he who had put that light in Harth’s eyes.

They assembled at the Flight Range with the other warriors one cold day in early winter. Above, the Hebra sky was characteristically grey, the persistent snowfall obscuring the peaks above, but the world never seemed so cold and monochrome when Teba glanced across the lodge to Harth. Harth leaned against the supply chests with his usual overconfidence, and Teba was momentarily glad that he was stuck between two other warriors; had he been beside Harth he would have immediately given them away.

“Teba, Harth,” called the First Warrior. “There’s a nest of lizalfos on the south dock of Lake Kilsie threatening our supply of fish and harassing our fishers.”

“How many?” Teba asked.

“No more than half-a-dozen, but I’d rather this was dealt with sooner rather than later.”

“We can handle it,” said Harth, glancing across the lodge to Teba with a cockiness in his eyes that would surely betray them. Not for the first time, Teba thought that Harth would never outgrow his youthful arrogance.

“Teba?”

“Consider it done,” agreed Teba.

As they took flight out over the rocky plateau in which the Flight Range was nestled, Teba wondered if it would have been prudent to ask for more warriors to accompany them. He dismissed the thought—with Saki suspicious of Harth’s sudden lightheartedness, it would not be long before they would have to decide if they wanted to court formally and publicly. For now, Teba cherished those few stolen moments when they could just be with one another, without the strictures of custom hemming them in.

As the cliff-face fell away below them, they came into view of the southern-most shore of Lake Kilsie. Though the snow blew heavy and damp around them, Teba easily picked out the fire on the shore where the lizalfos were gathered. They circled their campfire, fish bones heaped in piles in the little rocky alcove that protected them from the elements.

“No more than half-a-dozen my tail feathers,” Harth complained. “I count eight.”

“We can turn back,” Teba told him. “Come back again with more warriors.”

Harth didn’t say anything, but the set of his beak was reminder enough that Harth never fled from a fight. It wasn’t as though they were high order lizalfos anyway—mostly blue and icy—and Teba couldn’t help but feel his heart race a little as Harth unslung his swallow bow caught it in his talons. His wasn’t the fluid motion which they had been taught to emulate, but the rawness of Harth’s fighting style thrilled Teba in a way he couldn’t quite qualify.

“Ready or not,” Harth said, a glint in his eye as he glanced back at Teba.

This was the dance for them, the rise and fall of aerial combat, the percussive sound of arrows meeting their marks, the whine of the return fire hurtling past them. The two of them had practised side by side from the time they were barely as tall as their swallow bows, and Teba could anticipate Harth’s moves just as Harth anticipated his as they weaved past each other, one regaining height while to other loosed their rounds in a comforting rhythm. It was how Teba knew that Harth had not seen the ninth lizalfos.

Before Teba could call out, the creature had whipped a club lashed with bone in Harth’s direction. Harth didn’t make a sound as he fell the short distance to the ground, his talons scraping against the ice-slicked stone. His swallow bow clattered from his injured wing. As the remaining lizalfos circled, Harth drew his feathered edge, his wing quivering in sobering desperation.

Cold panic rising in his chest, Teba tried his best to pick off the creatures as they swarmed Harth, but he feared his arrows would go astray with how badly his wings were suddenly shaking. Seeing no other choice, Teba dropped into a dive and used his momentum to drive his feathered edge into one of the saurian creatures. As Teba rolled, tangled with the lizafos, he yanked his blade from its chest, and lashed out at the next. 

The three foes that remained retreated to the water, where Teba attempted to pick them off with his few remaining arrows. They taunted him with hisses and chatters as they propelled themselves backwards in the water and took up a patrol, waiting for an opening.

The clatter of metal on stone tore Teba’s attention from the loathsome creatures on the water as Harth dropped his blade to press a shaking wing over his side. Heart in his throat, Teba sheathed his own blade, and abandoned all dignity as he ran to catch Harth.

“Harth.”

“It’s not too bad,” Harth tried to tell him through his clenched beak.

Harth flinched at the wing that Teba wrapped around his back to steady him, and covered Harth’s hand with his own, feeling the warm slickness of blood between his fingers. Harth’s dark plumage had always hidden the seriousness of his injuries, but Teba could already see the red trails on his own white feathers.

“Can you fly?” Teba asked him, glancing at the awkwardly hanging wing.

Harth shook his head, and Teba could see the shame in his eyes. Teba felt much the same as he walked Harth to the recess in the stone face where the lizalfos’ campfire still burned. They should have known better— _he_ should have known better. Teba had grown up in a warrior family, and his allegiance to the principles which guided the warriors had been ingrained in him by both his father and Kaneli, his mentor. He knew that he had failed to live up to his heritage the moment he and Harth had gone on their first patrol after Harth’s fateful confession. It had ended with them entangled in each other in the snow, and Teba had been helpless to use his good judgment where Harth was concerned from that moment on.

As Teba helped him settle back against the rock wall near the fire, Harth drew in his breath with a sharp hiss, though Teba could see that Harth was trying his best not to let the pain of his injuries show.

“They’re still out there,” Harth said, his eyes following the horns that poked up above the disturbed water.

“I’ll see to them after,” Teba promised, as he drew from his quiver the rag he used to wipe down his blade.

“Don’t touch me with that,” Harth protested, sensing his intent.

“It hasn’t been used. I need to stop the bleeding.”

“I have it under control,” Harth told him obstinately.

“Harth, I don’t want to wait until you pass out, but I will if I must.”

In the battle of wills with Harth, Teba lost as often as won, but today Harth broke first and moved his hand so he could be treated. Teba pressed the tattered bit of cloth over the shallow puncture wound below the edge of Harth’s leather cuirass, and used Harth’s sash to tie it in place. If Teba had to guess, it had been caused by a spiky bit of bone from the club that scraped through Harth’s feathers.

“You’re supposed to go for help,” Harth pointed out, even as he pressed his hand over Teba’s, holding him in place.

Teba shook his head and glanced back to the lizalfos on the water. He had no intention of leaving Harth, let alone when he was so defenceless against those creatures. Besides, everyone knew where they were—it was only a matter of time before the rest of the warriors would show up when Teba and Harth failed to return.

“At the very least get my bow. My father will have my hide if I come home without it.”

“Don’t move,” Teba told him unnecessarily.

“Where am I going to go?” Harth asked with the bite of ire in his tone.

As Teba withdrew his hand from the wound on Harth’s side he saw that the bleeding had slowed, hadn’t even soaked through the fabric of Harth’s clothing. Teba never could tell how seriously Harth had been injured through the dark feathers when the light was so low—Harth himself hardly made this less of a challenge.

Teba stood and walked toward the dock, his eyes never leaving those lizalfos on the water. He considered trying to pick them off from the shore, but he didn’t want to provoke a fight with creatures that were so much faster on land than he was if he could help it. As it was, they seemed content out on the water, so Teba quietly collected the bow and blade, and brought them back to the camp.

When Teba returned, whatever adrenaline from the fight seemed to have worn off, and Harth’s face was drawn in pain. Teba checked the makeshift bandage once more before he settled down beside Harth, and carefully slid a wing behind him. Abandoning his attempt at stoicism, Harth settled against him with a wince.

“The others will be here soon,” Teba assured him, brushing the curve of his beak across the side of Harth’s face.

“And you’re comfortable being found like this?”

There was a reason that romantic intentions between warriors were meant to be declared, and this was it. Teba had let his desire to keep what they had secret and uncomplicated get in the way of his duty, and it had led him to make a grave tactical error. They were fortunate that this had not ended much worse, Teba realized as his stomach plummeted sickeningly.

“I think we have to tell them,” Teba said quietly.

“It still feels so soon...what if this...”

Harth shifted uncomfortably and pulled his injured wing protectively against his body with a hiss. Teba wrapped his other wing around Harth, and rested his forehead against Harth’s hair. It did no good to place blame, but Teba knew that they would both be made to answer for their poor decisions today.

“You were so eager to tell Saki just the other day,” Teba teased him gently.

“That’s Saki! It feels wrong to keep our happiness a secret from her.”

“Is that what you’re calling this?” Teba asked softly. _Happiness_. He knew he shouldn’t enjoy this, but there was something about Harth’s sudden honesty about his feelings that delighted Teba. He was amazed to find that the elation of knowing Harth was happy with him had only grown since Harth had first confessed his affections.

“What if—whatever this is—falls apart as soon as we tell everyone?” Harth finally asked. “What if this was only good because it was a secret?”

“I don’t know,” said Teba honestly, nuzzling his beak into Harth’s feathers.

“Can’t we just have a little more time?”

“The way I feel about you...it clouds my judgment on the field of battle.”

“Then what?” Harth scoffed in panic. “You ask my father’s permission to court me? I present you with cool safflina? We pledge ourselves before the goddess?”

Even with the frantic note creeping into Harth’s tone, Teba found he was less afraid of the prospect of binding himself to Harth than he was of losing him. Teba drew Harth closer and rested his beak on the top of his head. He played with Harth’s long hair to comfort him, that strange symbol of both his vanity and his insecurity.

“Perhaps we just start with the warriors...because this can’t happen again...but...if you wanted those things...”

“Right now, all I want is a decent dose of pain reliever and my own hammock.”

“They won’t be long now,” said Teba, glancing up at the dark shapes in flight overhead.

Harth leaned back to brush his beak against Teba’s—perhaps the last kiss they might share in secret.

“Whatever happens,” Harth said quietly. “In this moment...I would do all those things with you—all the courting stuff we made fun of—if only so that we could remain together.”

Teba drew the sensitive tip of his beak along the side of Harth’s, resisting the urge to tighten his wings around him at that sweet admission. Perhaps Harth’s father would let Teba stay by Harth’s side tonight if he promised to behave himself, though he doubted that they would ever again get away with such casual innocence. 

When he had finally collected the words to reciprocate, Teba’s voice came out strangely husky with emotion.

“So would I.”

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and comments greatly appreciated <3


End file.
